Chinook (C-Train)

Chinook station is a CTrain light rail station in Manchester, Calgary, Alberta. The station opened on May 25, 1981, as part of the original South line on the Red Line.

The station is located on the exclusive LRT right of way (adjacent to CPR ROW) at 61 Avenue SW, 5.7 km south of the City Hall Interlocking. It is a three-block walk from the Chinook Centre shopping centre. A 320-space parking facility is also available for park and ride commuters.

The station consists of a center-loading platform with ramp access on the North end.

Chinook is the only Public Transit Station named after a privately owned and operated business (the shopping mall) as there are no other landmarks or communities in the area with that title when the station opened in Calgary. Years later, Westbrook station opened and naming scheme like this station.

As part of Calgary Transit's plan to operate four-car trains starting by the end of 2014, all three-car stations will need to be extended. Chinook Station however was completely rebuilt to a new design very similar to Somerset-Bridlewood, McKnight/Westwinds and Saddletowne Stations. Construction on the new bus terminal started in the summer of 2012. On January 14, 2013, the station and bus terminal closed for redevelopment and has re-opened on September 3, 2013. Bus service to Chinook passed through a temporary terminal at 3 Street SW with a bus shuttle connecting the terminal and the 39th Avenue CTrain station during the station's closure.

In 2005, the station registered an average transit of 12,400 boardings per weekday.

Crime

During the month of March 2023, an underground drug operation along the Calgary C-Train system would get disrupted. Officers seized the substances of fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, morphine and xanax. Multiple weapons such as 21 knives, two machetes, two hatchets, a handgun, and a can of bear spray were also seized by police. 40 people would get arrested between multiple stations, Chinook along with Franklin, Southland, Marlborough, Heritage, Sunalta, Rundle, Whitehorn, Brentwood, Crowfoot, 8th Street SW, Anderson, Dalhousie, Westbrook Stations would have arrests relating to the aforementioned drug trade.

In September of 2021, a man would ask two men not wearing a mask to mind their distance on a C-Train heading south from Heritage to Chinook. Then one of the men would proceed to aggressively cough in the man’s face when getting off the train at Chinook Station, and then both men proceeded to threaten the man with following him to his house from the train. At that point, the man would proceed to alert Calgary Transit police officers, with peace officers telling the man “that’s the risk you take riding the train”. The two men would continue to follow the man towards Chinook Centre, all while verbally harassing him. The man would be able to lose the two men inside the mall.

Connecting bus services

10 City Hall/Southcentre
23 Foothills Industrial
36 Riverbend
41 Lynnwood
47 Lakeview
66 Blackfoot Express
72 Circle Route
73 Circle Route
81 Macleod Trail
136 Riverbend
410 Glenmore Business Park

References

CTrain stations
Railway stations in Canada opened in 1981
1981 establishments in Alberta

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